Abstract: Impacts of Climate Change in South Asia
This presentation would deal with the major findings of the Fourth Assessment Report
(AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and provide an overview
of the challenges presented by climate change in South Asia.
The AR4 established that warming of the climate system is unequivocal and that most of
the warming which has taken place since the middle of the last century was very likely on
account of an increase in the concentration of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) resulting from
human activities. Projections of climate change in the future provide scenarios of
increasing temperature by the end of this century and a range of impacts in different
regions of the world. Some parts of the world, including South Asia, are more vulnerable to
the impacts of climate change than others, and some of the communities and locations
which would suffer the most serious impacts of climate change are the least equipped to
adapt to these impacts.
Some of the key vulnerabilities faced in South Asia are in the areas of water availability;
coastal erosion and inundation of coastal lowlands; human health; and agriculture and food
supply. In some instances, the impacts of climate change would have extremely negative
effects on human livelihoods and development. For example, it is predicted that 120
million to 1.2 billion people will experience increased water stress in South and Southeast
Asia by the 2020s.
To meet the challenge of climate change, a combination of adaptation and mitigation
measures would have to be taken in hand, and while adaptation would need to be designed
specific to different communities and locations, mitigation needs to be carried out through
a global reduction in emissions of GHGs. This would require the adoption of policy
instruments of various kinds, including a price on carbon. Some of these measures to
promote mitigation will be explained with examples such as India’s National Action Plan on
Climate Change.